Swallowtail
by Silverr
Summary: Vignettes of the life of Ageha of the Blue Nobles. Dancer, spy, mentor, slave, mystery. Spoilers for volumes 1-24 at very least. Rated for the harshest chapters.
1. Waiting

_The Legend of Basara is copyright Yumi Tamura, Flower Comics and KSS._

_._

Vignettes of the life of Ageha of the Blue Nobles. Dancer, spy, mentor, slave, mystery. Spoilers for volumes 1-24, of course.

Swallowtail

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* * *

Waiting

* * *

So few have known me, and that has been an advantage. So many times I have been appraised to be a vain, shallow vessel – containing no complex thoughts, no refined emotions, no higher purpose. I was entertainment, decoration, and as such posed no threat. Even sober, men talk freely around vases and curtains.

But some .. some came to realize that their initial assessment of me had been wrong. I learned to watch for it, that dangerous instant, and to take quick action once I scouted the nature of their reaction. Those who felt humiliated by their error wanted to crush me. Those who had glancingly dismissed me as trivial were often stimulated to find that the treasure chest was not empty, and usually pursued my companionship. And those that had thought I was a woman? Even when they didn't offer to pay for my silence, the sort of simpleton who can look at a bowl of figs and see a fish was sometimes amusing.

Which leaves those others, those very few others: Sarasa, Madame, Nagi, Raizu – who somehow saw the true Ageha from the first, even before I was aware of who I was. Who I would become. Did their vision truly reach so far? Or was it simply that my love for them drove me to change into what they thought they saw in me?

Of course all of this is pointless speculation. But what else am I to do as I wait for the flames?


	2. Clean Blanket

Clean Blanket

Mining is dark, and dangerous, and tiring, but it does have one advantage: it leaves the mind entirely free for other things. Hour after hour, the pick rising and falling, the rubble loaded into wooden carts by the weaker and older prisoners. I position myself so that I can keep an eye on Sarasa. She seems not to have noticed how Scarleg and Yellowscarf have been gradually edging closer and closer to her.

Dogs scenting a female.

I grip my axe, knowing what will happen if she is discovered. Despite Shirazu's orders, she will be torn apart; but at least I will take a few of them down with me. They look over at me suddenly, as if they have read my thoughts, but no, it is only that Shirazu has entered the tunnel and is standing behind me. There is no need for me to acknowledge him; we both know that I am pretending not to notice that he is there.

He leans against the rock wall, facing me but clearly watching Sarasa and the two men. The display might be for them, or for me, or both—but whichever it is I do not care. Sarasa is my concern, not this man.

Just as I take a deep breath, gathering my energy to rush to her, Shirazu snatches a fist-sized rock from the rubble I have been working and throws it at Scarleg's head. I imagine I can hear a crack as it hits: Scarleg staggers, blood running down his neck. Yellowscarf rushes to help him. The rest of the prisoners stop working and watch, glancing furtively at Shirazu; he stands silent, cradling a second rock in his palm and rolling his broad shoulders. This is the first time I have seen the evidence of how he got—and keeps—his power. I am grateful for the reminder that there is more to the leader of this cell block than smiles and proverb-spinning.

Scarleg and Yellowscarf stumble away, whimpering. The other prisoners go back to work and soon the tunnel is webbed with noise again.

"You know," Shirazu says quietly, so that only I can hear, "You could show me some affection."

I almost laugh. Always, men think that using a body means that they are entitled to the soul inside. "Affection?" I swing the pickaxe again: chips of stone splatter against Shirazu's prison uniform. "We have a business deal. Not a love affair."

"You make it sound so cold, Ageha. Mercenary."

"It is." I say, feeling unexpectedly angry. "I service you so that you will protect my brother's innocence. To require payment for something that a decent person should do without thinking—that's mercenary."

Shirazu says. "You cannot protect your—_brother—_forever."

"What I do is not your concern."

"An egg can break only once." His face is set now, harsh, indifferent. Too much like another face, and I am suddenly thrown back into my past, blurring it with Sarasa's present. No one was there to protect me, and so I must not fail her. "No," I say, "Innocence can be lost over and over."

And then as I see his face soften, as he puts a hand on my shoulder and asks, "A painful memory?" I curse myself for giving him an opening that I do not want him to have. I _want_ a business deal with Shirazu.

From the corner of my eye I see Sarasa watching us, her forehead wrinkling with concern. I have to stop this now. "So you want my past now as well? Fine." I drop my pick and face him; even with all else I can see the brightening of his eyes that means he thinks he's won some victory. "An extra blanket for my brother, then, and you get as much of my life story as you can stomach."

"Ageha—"

He looks uncomfortable now. Good. "For _two _blankets I'll tell you all the ways I lost my innocence."

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~ :|: ~

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After meals he points to a long narrow niche carved into the stone at the back of his alcove and says to Sarasa, "You can sleep there." She glances at me and I nod.

Shirazu steps close to me, his thumbs hooked into the waist of his trousers. "It's good, right? No one will be able to get to her—to _him_, I mean. _Him._ And I put down two clean blankets. Warmth and comfort." He holds up a hand. "No need to pay me with stories."

"Oh?" I am still angry at myself. I do not want to acknowledge that he is good man. I must stop looking at the way his beard curves around his mouth. I want to strangle that voice that whispers _If only it were another place, another time, another Ageha—_but then he makes it easy.

"You will sleep here from now on." He points to his bed.

"Why should I?"

"The prudent man guards all his treasure."

"I do not—_belong_ to you." I welcome the return of anger.

"Didn't say you did," he grins as he shucks out of his uniform.

From the corner of my eye I see the prisoner I call Jealousy—Shirazu's previous bedmate— glaring at me with hatred. Sarasa is settled already in the alcove, her back to us. As always, I will do what I must do, for her, and so I undress and slip under Shirazu's blanket. "Just get it over with."

"No." Shirazu spoons against me, rubbing his face against my hair, nuzzling my shoulder, his arm tight around my waist. "Warmth and comfort and safety, Ageha. Be grateful and be quiet."

I take a deep breath. His smell is sharp and clean, but I fold my arms across my chest. Just as it is necessary when following someone through a crowd to ignore all other distractions so I must keep before me that here, in this prison bed in Hokkaido, I am a slave again, nothing more than master's property until Sarasa and I escape. As for the rest of the crowd—the kind man, the considerate lover, the broad-shouldered beast with the soft dark beard—to notice them would be a foolish luxury, and I will not allow it.

rev05_7Feb2010


	3. Tenderness

Tenderness

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"I am not like my father," he told me once. He did not realize how much he revealed in those words.

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The very earliest memory I have is of standing in the doorway of a tent at dawn, watching the sunlight explode over a dune and turn the sand to diamond. In this memory I can feel rough canvas bunched in my small hand, feel the warm air from behind me flowing out around my legs and into the chill desert air, and smell that aroma of spice and dust that was the smell of my people (or so I was told many years later); all of this overlaid with a profound calm certainty that I was cherished and safe.

Of course, all of this may be my own invention, to fill my need to remember what it my life have been like before I was a slave.

I have no memory at all of the slaughter of my people by the Red King

, or even how I was taken to the home of Shido's father. (Did I ever know his real name? He beat me any time I neglected to address him as Master. In later years I referred to him as Fekka, a word used for freshly-dropped dung.)

Of course, when I say "taken to the home" I mean "imprisoned in a stone shed that had been built far enough from the main house that screams and begging could not be heard by the Master's family and guests." Did I scream and beg at first? I cannot remember. What child would not? To be bound, and beaten, and violated? To choke on swollen flesh, and be beaten again until I learned not to bite? He told me often that I should be grateful that he did not knock all my teeth out. (I know now it is of course that he knew that it would lower my market value when it came time to sell me to some other Master.)

What I do remember is every inch of stone wall and earthen floor, every crack, every splinter of the bed of two planks I slept on. I would lie for hours on my side watching insects appear and disappear, persistent and free. And though you may not believe it, I can still recall the exact sensation, the faint vibrations of the earth that warned me that he was stomping to the shed angry from some event in his house. The exact sound of the rusty lock. The yeasty, unwashed stink of his pubic hair. The taste of his shit when he forced me to lick his ass.

Such fond memories. In so many ways, Fekka made me the man I am today. He taught me how to hide my emotions, to play a part, to control reckless impulses. He taught me what true pain and humiliation are, so much so that I have been able to bear everything since.

Almost everything. Everything but Shido.

Even when I try, I can barely hold on to my memories of Shido. I didn't even know who he was at first, the solemn boy wearing so many clothes, or why he had Fekka's keys.

"Number 31," he asked from the doorway. "Are you all right?" And then he came toward me, holding out a jar. "I heard that you were hurt. I brought you some ointment. You should rub it on your skin." As if that had not been amazing enough he had knelt next to me, tried to pull my rags away (it was likely to look at my injuries, but I was too frightened or shocked to realize that at the time); when I clutched them tight to me, he reached a hand toward my face, not to slap me, but to brush the hair out of my eyes. "I brought you an apple, too. Here."

When I did not speak or move he put it into my hands - and then Fekka was in the doorway, roaring, "Shido! Don't waste your time with the slaves!"

"Father," the boy stood up and said firmly, "Please don't hurt the slaves. They're people too."

"No, they're not," Fekka said. "They're _property_. You'll understand some day."

"He looks like he's hurting. And hungry."

I looked down at the apple in my hands, glowing as if I held the sun, and though I probably did not understand at the time why, I knew that if I kept it, if I ate it, I might die: at the very least, two boys would be beaten instead of one. And so, because I was hungrier to live, I threw the apple against the wall. It split open, the white flesh falling to the floor in miraculous feast for the ants and beetles.

"See?" Fekka said. "Your efforts are wasted on the slaves. They have less gratitude than a dog." As they left he looked back over his shoulder at me and added with contempt, "An animal would at least whimper and run away to lick its own wounds. You do nothing."

Kind, simple, stupid Shido. He was still too young to understand that, when defying a more powerful opponent, choosing the time of confrontation is the key. One small dagger thrust may bring down a king when the mightiest armies cannot: but then subterfuge and pretense were never part of my Shido's nature.

(Yes, I say "my Shido." Pretense has been _my_ nature for many years.)

If he came at first from curiosity, he came again from compassion (probably partly in defiance of his father.) At the time I was foolish enough to think that I was as special to him as he was to me; it was only later that I heard from others that he had been kind to many of his father's slaves because of the brand borne by his adored cousin Shuri, the future Red King.

"Come with me," Shido said to me many years later, wrapping me tenderly in a scarlet cloak before he kissed me. "I want you by my side as I lead armies to victory."

And that day I understood Shido completely. He knew nothing of me, for if he had he would never have wrapped me in red, the color of the armies that had killed my people. He wanted me at his side, not as his equal, not as his love, not even as an object of desire, but because Shuri wished it, as a symbol of the slaves that the Red King had freed, for what Shuri wanted, Shido took.

"I am not like my father."

No Shido. You were as tender and dispassionate as the Buddha as you sent thousands to heaven.

And I was not at your side.

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(04) 8 Mar 2010


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